The Dish And The Spoon

• Emily Seto, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2019

You’ve probably heard of Hey Diddle Diddle, but did you ever wonder what happened after the song ended? If you read this, then you’ll find out what became of the dish and the spoon. They had a lovely wedding in England and had five small forks who they named Forky, Forksy, Forkiona, Forkoon and Forkish. One day, however, when they were having fun in China, the forks’ mother wanted to see the fireworks and their father argued about a lion dance. This petty quarrel broke out into a raging fight and they eventually decided to split up. The spoon was to take the forks and the dish would go alone. When this news reached the ears of the poor little forks, they began to cry bitterly, despite their mother’s attempts to soothe them. The dish left them the next day, much to his children’s protests. He settled down to camp outside someone’s house but when he woke up the next morning, he was not lying in a grassy area as he had been the night before but in a dark room with no light but seemed rather messy with things he couldn’t see. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realised that the things cluttering the strange room were really other dishes. He tapped his neighbour, who seemed to be in a deep slumber and didn’t wake. The next day, the dish was taken out of his cupboard and put down on an enormous table. Some long stringy things were placed upon him and was put into a human’s mouth using a fork which he felt extremely sorry for. It reminded him of his own family and the thought made him sad. A few months later, when he was in his cupboard, the dish was thinking about the old days when the drawer was pulled slowly and slightly open. In climbed his wife, the spoon and he climbed up to her and embraced her. She explained that she and the forks had been living poorly since he had left. They were camping on the grass outside somebody’s house and woken up in the drawer below this one. The family, reunited escaped when the front door was opened and lived in peace from then. However, one thing changed: every night before the forks went to bed, their mother sang the following in gratefulness to have her husband back.
Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon
The little dog laughed,
To see such fun,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.